#fluffygate — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #fluffygate, aggregated by home.social.
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#Nicenasty the hidden power of soft obstruction
This mess is something we need to compost - in movements, communities, and alternative projects, we need language to describe the different forces shaping what happens, without shared vocabulary, patterns remain invisible. People experience the same problems repeatedly, but each incident looks like an individual conflict rather than part of a wider social mess making. Within #OMN hashtag story, we already have some useful terms. #nastyfew - power from above. The #nastyfew are the obvious […]https://hamishcampbell.com/nicenasty-the-hidden-power-of-soft-obstruction/
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#Nicenasty the hidden power of soft obstruction
People think in groups, that's normal. The mistake isn't group thinking itself, it's pretending we're all isolated individuals while still acting through tribes, identities, and social blocs. A lot of today's "common sense" comes from the #stupidindividualism group mindset. We are encouraged to see every problem through individual choices rather than collective realities. The real question isn't "how do we stop group thinking?" It's "what do we do with it?" This mess is something we need to […]https://hamishcampbell.com/nicenasty-the-hidden-power-of-soft-obstruction/
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#Nicenasty the hidden power of soft obstruction
People think in groups. That's normal. The mistake isn't group thinking itself, it's pretending we're all isolated individuals while still acting through tribes, identities, and social blocs. A lot of today's "common sense" comes from the #stupidindividualism group mindset. We are encouraged to see every problem through individual choices rather than collective realities. The real question isn't "how do we stop group thinking?" It's "what do we do with it?" This mess is something we need to […]https://hamishcampbell.com/nicenasty-the-hidden-power-of-soft-obstruction/
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#Nicenasty the hidden power of soft obstruction
People think in groups. That's normal. The mistake isn't group thinking itself, it's pretending we're all isolated individuals while still acting through tribes, identities, and social blocs. A lot of today's "common sense" comes from the #stupidindividualism group mindset. We are encouraged to see every problem through individual choices rather than collective realities. The real question isn't "how do we stop group thinking?" It's "what do we do with it?" This mess is something we need to […]https://hamishcampbell.com/nicenasty-the-hidden-power-of-soft-obstruction/
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#Nicenasty the hidden power of soft obstruction
People think in groups, that's normal. The mistake isn't group thinking itself, it's pretending we're all isolated individuals while still acting through tribes, identities, and social blocs. A lot of today's "common sense" comes from the #stupidindividualism group mindset. We are encouraged to see every problem through individual choices rather than collective realities. The real question isn't "how do we stop group thinking?" It's "what do we do with it?" This mess is something we need to […]https://hamishcampbell.com/nicenasty-the-hidden-power-of-soft-obstruction/
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Existing vocabulary:
#nastyfew - the overlords: tech, business, political power. Works well, already established.
#fluffy - comfortable, non-threatening, conflict-avoiding activism. Well understood in context.
#spiky - confrontational, direct, willing to cause friction.
The gap is something more specific: the person who performs niceness or fluffiness as a *weapon* - who uses social respectability, politeness norms, or community goodwill as a way to enforce conformity, block challenge, and protect their own position. Not the #nastyfew (they're openly powerful) and not simply #fluffy (that's just timid). This is the *vile* fluffy - nice on the surface, actively harmful underneath.
Options:
#nicenasty -. Has rhythm, easy to remember, does the job. The inversion is the point.
#velvetblock - soft surface, hard obstruction. More descriptive of the *mechanism*.
#fluffygate- implies gatekeeping behind a fluffy front. A bit clunky.
#pratocracy - the rule of prats. Funny but loses the specific nice/nasty dynamic.#softpower - already taken in international relations, would cause confusion.
#vilefluff - pairs well with #nicenasty tag, keep it in the vocabulary
#nicenasty is the strongest - it's immediately, has no baggage, and does what a hashtag should do: compress a complex dynamic into something people recognise and use to organise the moment they hear it.
The question is whether one tag or two. #nastyfew for power from above, #nicenasty for obstruction from within the community itself, #fluffy for the timid. A clean three-part vocabulary?
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Existing vocabulary:
#nastyfew - the overlords: tech, business, political power. Works well, already established.
#fluffy - comfortable, non-threatening, conflict-avoiding activism. Well understood in context.
#spiky - confrontational, direct, willing to cause friction.
The gap is something more specific: the person who performs niceness or fluffiness as a *weapon* - who uses social respectability, politeness norms, or community goodwill as a way to enforce conformity, block challenge, and protect their own position. Not the #nastyfew (they're openly powerful) and not simply #fluffy (that's just timid). This is the *vile* fluffy - nice on the surface, actively harmful underneath.
Options:
#nicenasty -. Has rhythm, easy to remember, does the job. The inversion is the point.
#velvetblock - soft surface, hard obstruction. More descriptive of the *mechanism*.
#fluffygate- implies gatekeeping behind a fluffy front. A bit clunky.
#pratocracy - the rule of prats. Funny but loses the specific nice/nasty dynamic.#softpower - already taken in international relations, would cause confusion.
#vilefluff - pairs well with #nicenasty tag, keep it in the vocabulary
#nicenasty is the strongest - it's immediately, has no baggage, and does what a hashtag should do: compress a complex dynamic into something people recognise and use to organise the moment they hear it.
The question is whether one tag or two. #nastyfew for power from above, #nicenasty for obstruction from within the community itself, #fluffy for the timid. A clean three-part vocabulary?
-
Existing vocabulary:
#nastyfew - the overlords: tech, business, political power. Works well, already established.
#fluffy - comfortable, non-threatening, conflict-avoiding activism. Well understood in context.
#spiky - confrontational, direct, willing to cause friction.
The gap is something more specific: the person who performs niceness or fluffiness as a *weapon* - who uses social respectability, politeness norms, or community goodwill as a way to enforce conformity, block challenge, and protect their own position. Not the #nastyfew (they're openly powerful) and not simply #fluffy (that's just timid). This is the *vile* fluffy - nice on the surface, actively harmful underneath.
Options:
#nicenasty -. Has rhythm, easy to remember, does the job. The inversion is the point.
#velvetblock - soft surface, hard obstruction. More descriptive of the *mechanism*.
#fluffygate- implies gatekeeping behind a fluffy front. A bit clunky.
#pratocracy - the rule of prats. Funny but loses the specific nice/nasty dynamic.#softpower - already taken in international relations, would cause confusion.
#vilefluff - pairs well with #nicenasty tag, keep it in the vocabulary
#nicenasty is the strongest - it's immediately, has no baggage, and does what a hashtag should do: compress a complex dynamic into something people recognise and use to organise the moment they hear it.
The question is whether one tag or two. #nastyfew for power from above, #nicenasty for obstruction from within the community itself, #fluffy for the timid. A clean three-part vocabulary?
-
Existing vocabulary:
#nastyfew - the overlords: tech, business, political power. Works well, already established.
#fluffy - comfortable, non-threatening, conflict-avoiding activism. Well understood in context.
#spiky - confrontational, direct, willing to cause friction.
The gap is something more specific: the person who performs niceness or fluffiness as a *weapon* - who uses social respectability, politeness norms, or community goodwill as a way to enforce conformity, block challenge, and protect their own position. Not the #nastyfew (they're openly powerful) and not simply #fluffy (that's just timid). This is the *vile* fluffy - nice on the surface, actively harmful underneath.
Options:
#nicenasty -. Has rhythm, easy to remember, does the job. The inversion is the point.
#velvetblock - soft surface, hard obstruction. More descriptive of the *mechanism*.
#fluffygate- implies gatekeeping behind a fluffy front. A bit clunky.
#pratocracy - the rule of prats. Funny but loses the specific nice/nasty dynamic.#softpower - already taken in international relations, would cause confusion.
#vilefluff - pairs well with #nicenasty tag, keep it in the vocabulary
#nicenasty is the strongest - it's immediately, has no baggage, and does what a hashtag should do: compress a complex dynamic into something people recognise and use to organise the moment they hear it.
The question is whether one tag or two. #nastyfew for power from above, #nicenasty for obstruction from within the community itself, #fluffy for the timid. A clean three-part vocabulary?